Key Considerations for the PSIM Setup

- Setting up a list of response measures requires not just the PSIM technology, but the policy management of all stakeholders. - PSIM can impact not just security, but also IT, human resources and facilities management.

PSIM functions not only to bring the most important information to the attention of operators, but also to help them make sense of multiple inputs. Setting up a list of response measures requires not just the PSIM technology, but most importantly, the policy management of all stakeholders. “One of the biggest challenges that we have seen is that PSIM systems tend to overlap multiple departments or agencies and getting those parties to agree and commit to cooperating in a PSIM system,” said Jason Troester, IT Manager at Unlimited Technology.

PSIM can impact not just security, but also IT, human resources and facilities management. “Multiple parties, or departments, throughout an enterprise can have responsibility for or influence in a PSIM deployment,” said Jeremy Brecher, VP of Security Technology and Integration, Diebold Security. “When connecting the subsystems that are part of PSIM management, for instance, rules of engagement are critical. An overarching agreement should be developed for how PSIM will impact these systems. And processes should be identified for how stakeholders that own subsystems continue to operate and maintain those systems once they are part of PSIM. Each stakeholder should have a role; and those roles should be clearly articulated early in the process.”

The PSIM system setup and configuration stage is central to ensuring the system meets the varying needs of all stakeholders. “Allowing permissions requires some legal processes to determine an established permissions hierarchy within the PSIM solution,” Adlan Hussain, Marketing Manager at CNL Software said. “This ensures the system is 100-percent compliant with these legal agreements, which reduces the risk of litigation and accelerates the speed at which visual intelligence can be distributed.

“From a broad perspective, it's important to remember that PSIM is a tool. It does not eliminate the need for departments and functional groups within an organization to work together. And it cannot be successful without a measurable goal,” Brecher said. “Determining the rules of engagement, how systems connect and how to assign roles and responsibilities requires a significant investment of time at the front end. There is no shortcut for that.”

Organizational integration between multiple sites can be even more difficult, since it impacts how businesses work and operate. “If one wants to model an entire city, it's not something that you can do overnight. Once you model it, there has to be a plan to roll it out across different agencies and to set up zones,” said Debjit Das, VP of Marketing, Verint Systems. “What we often see is that some security directors are saying they want PSIM, but they do not have an executive sponsorship to roll it out. Executive sponsorship will affect business processes.

Despite careful planning, each stakeholder needs to define what they need. “We have seen situations between two organizations where they are unable to come to an agreement on whether one department should be able to access the video of another,” Das said. “These kinds of problems cannot be resolved by technology.”

In multiple sites and citywide projects, change is hard. “Departments or agencies that used to run autonomously may be forced to share, or even consolidate, resulting in power struggles, transition challenges and, potentially, derailed and failed project implementations,” said Bob Scott, Executive Director of Security Solutions Strategy, Intergraph. “Until an organization really evaluates and changes doctrine, policy and operational concepts, all the technology in the world will not make a deployment successful.”

“A best practice for situation management across multiple sites or a city is to obtain buy-in from all stakeholders on the types of situations to monitor for, their associated responses and the role of each stakeholder in the response,” said James Chong, CTO of VidSys. “Once agreed upon, each stakeholder should then have the ability to monitor and respond to the information relevant to their role.”

“It is getting common to have government agencies and private vendors co-running such operations and leveraging each other's strengths, “said Patrick Lim, Director of Sales and Marketing, Ademco Far East (an Ademco Security Group company). “We have only encountered a single agency take ownership in the past; and trying to dispatch responses by communicating with other agencies. Gradually, we are seeing more functions being outsourced to a private vendor that has experience running such operations in a more cost-effective way.”